ABSTRACT
The Mbam Inoubou division is found in the south west area of
the centre province in Cameroon. It's a division with strong rural colouring,
but there are all the same some small urban centres. Like the majority of that
type of division in Cameroon, this one is confronted with drinkable water
supply for local people.
Looking at its physical aspect, this division is characterised
by a juxtaposition of areas favouring subsoil water exploitation and areas that
do not. It is the Cameroon national water company that supplies urban centres
daily with water, but rural areas use locally made hydraulic systems.
Unfortunately these infrastructures are unequally distributed on the whole of
the division. Some municipalities are better parcelled off than others. However
it is noticed that only 65 villages out of 171 have a water point and only 69%
of the 315 water point we have listed are functional. Consequently, we can
notice a great deficit at the level of the coverage rate for the drinkable
water supply, which is 5.5% in urban areas against 30% in rural areas.
The fact that there is no concertation between the various
actors of the hydraulics who operate in the division doesn't help the situation
to improve; hence a dangerous disorder unfavourable to local people in terms of
water supply and water point efficiency. As a matter of fact one can notice a
concentration of water works in some villages while some others are totally
deprived
On the whole of the department, one can distinguish different
modes of water point management like management boards, integrated management
(within a community initiative group or a local development committee),
commissioners, individual management, etc. These different management modes
also have different outcomes therefore causing the availability and regularity
of water to vary from one village to the other.
On the basis of the decentralization laws which allow the
water supply department to councils and in the order to improve this situation,
the nine communities of the Mbam Inoubou division have created the ASCOMI to
put together their knowledge and means for setting a water management
intercommunity policy. For so doing they have to take into account the
sociological aspect of the area but much more the will of the populations. That
is why a participative approach is necessary.
These nine councils should first of all create an
intercommunity water management board to supervise the whole of the process, to
define the roles and responsibilities of each participant and to be present all
over the division. Given the little technical, logistical and financial means,
their intercommunity policy would be effective by power delegation on the
different water supply works. This can be done through management, leasing or
concession, but it does not mean abandoning the management process to
exploiters. It rather gives way to improving the supply. Materialising this
network through contracts between actors is of course necessary, and the basic
intercommunity management structure should handle all management modes used by
partners, advise effective modes and go down to problematic areas.
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